Bottle Blonds and Spiders
by Mariel Nightstalker
Summary: In which Draco does battle with a spider and finds out that love isn't always complicated. SLASH Harry/Draco POST-WAR


**Bottle Blonds and Spiders**

As a child he never thought he'd have to do anything more than maintain the family's investments and bribe anyone who found fault with his actions. It was how his father had lived and his grandfather, and his grandfather's grandfather and everyone before them back into the 12th century. There had been some wars mixed in there, and the Malfoys had fought in them just enough to make sure that whoever next came into power wouldn't upset their pedestal.

He did _not _expect that his father would be thrown into prison when he was still a student, that his worst school rival would save his life, or that the damned Ministry would seize his family's fortune (his personal inheritance) on the flimsiest of charges. And they weren't satisfied with commandeering his money alone, no. They took the house, they took his mother away to an insane asylum, and finally they took his possessions. They even took the boat-shaped bed he'd slept in as a small boy. It was humiliating and heartbreaking and horrible.

Despite the awfulness of it all, he wasn't the only one the Ministry picked on. They found excuses to take money from all the old Pureblood families, even those that had been neutral or outright supported the Light. The Daily Prophet painted them as traditionalist bigots and bastards. They didn't have a chance of getting back what they'd lost.

In their time of equal poverty, they drew closer together in genuine friendship and support, unlike when they had security and only associated with each other for the sake of public appearances. Draco reunited with Blaise and Theodore from school and they pooled their tiny salaries to get a roof over their head and food in their stomachs. The three of them shared a small apartment and worked small jobs in the Muggle world. No one would hire them in the Wizarding world.

Draco worked as a stage hand in a theater company of all things. He never thought he'd be capable of manual labor, but an empty stomach can be a powerful motivator. He learned to keep his mouth shut, to work hard, and to avoid the female leads like they were the fucking plague. Most of them were blonde and none of them were born that way. Somehow they all mimicked the behavior of a pregnant dragon down to the pitch of their screams of rage.

There was just one of the female leads that didn't act like a lunatic. Leda wasn't originally a stage actress. She acted in movies, which were like Pensieve memories displayed on big curtains or "screens" for audiences. Taller than all the other actresses by at least a head, she was curvaceous as a mountain range and too sleepy to be bad-tempered. It helped that she barely spoke any English except the lines she memorized for plays. She wouldn't have been hired at all if it wasn't for her larger-than-life beauty. She seemed to be clothed in angelic brilliance.

As the only person on staff that spoke Swedish, thanks to his mother forcing him to learn 10 languages before he was 15 years old, he was promoted from stage hand to personal aide and translator. Now, for any man this is a dream come true. A straight man can enjoy the, ahem, view and a gay man can become lost in admiration for the amount of self-confidence a beautiful woman can contain.

Draco, as the latter, enjoyed Leda's company on a more-than-professional level. It was hard to be civil but aloof with Leda. She was like an octopus. Somehow she got into every aspect of his life but the magical one, and he couldn't help but wonder how he would have turned out if she was his mother and not Narcissa.

Because Theodore worked a night job as a bartender and Blaise spent most nights chasing wild women, Draco was in no hurry to get home at night. Ever since the War he hadn't liked to be alone. There was a month when his mother was taken away and he was left alone in their old Manor. The memory of it made him shudder. He didn't want to be left alone with his memories and self-loathing. It made him feel like a madman.

He would linger, instead, at the theater doing odd jobs and reassuring anyone that looked nervous. When Leda needed him she would activate his buzzer and he'd come running.

It was on one of those nights that he felt his buzzer go and rushed back to her room. She was due back on the stage in five minutes, so haste was of the essence. He nearly upset a cart of fake Victorian tea cakes on the way, apologized, and kept running. That was another thing his forced poverty had taught him: how to apologize.

He burst into her room with only the briefest of warning knocks. He found her standing on top of her dressing table with tears cascading down her cheeks.

"What happened?"

She pointed and said in Swedish, "Spider!"

He turned and found an extremely large and evil-looking spider perched on the shoes she needed to wear for her next scene. Thinking fast he grabbed a decorative fan. He needed to prod it away from the shoes before he could smash it; if he ruined her shoes it would come out of his paycheck.

Taking a breath, he prodded the spider. It refused to move and merely gave him an ugly look, if an insect is capable of giving any kind of look at all. He sighed and tried again. The clock was ticking. This time it retreated a little and he raised the fan to smash it into a pancake.

Before he could it suddenly bolted for a crack in the wallpaper he'd never noticed before and disappeared behind it. He smashed the spot, thinking it was only hiding. He peeled the loose piece back to inspect the damage and found no spider. There was an old open-ended pipe there and the spider had high-tailed it down its interior. He turned back to Leda and said it was gone. She sighed and smiled and held out her hands to be helped down. He took them and let her down. She sat and he fastened her shoes at her ankles for her.

"Thank you. You are my hero," she said in English, the words sounding alien coming from her. He smiled even as the h-word brought back memories of the H-person attached to it. She made it onto the stage just in time and was a complete triumph as usual. It was hard not to applaud a goddess.

After the performance she was due at a party to celebrate the success of opening night and invited him. He tried to say no but she steamrolled him. He found himself wearing a suit borrowed from the costume rack and crammed at a table with a bunch of people from varying levels of the theater. There were donors and patrons sitting crammed between chorus girls and male leads, which were either frowning or drunk or philandering when not on the stage. Draco found them infinitely preferable to the women. People drank more than is advisable and then some more after that. Draco followed suit to the point of being pleasantly numb and enjoyed the show and food. Leda sat beside him and had him translate the goings-on to her.

Unexpected extra guests at the dinner party resulted in people sitting on partner's laps and others on the floor. A couple found their way under the table and, judging from the sound of it, took advantage of their privacy to become rather affectionate with each other.

Towards three in the morning he left for some air and stood out on the balcony of the theater, admiring the bizarre skyline of London. Leda joined him after a little while. As previously stated it is hard to not be friends with Leda or to get sucked into little chats about your private life with her.

Leda frequently asked him in her charming voice, "Why Draco, why do you not have anyone to love you? You are very handsome man!"

He tried to keep his mouth shut in the past but she wormed it out of him that night. She leaned her head on his shoulder and asked him the question again. He looked at her and let himself trust those wide blue-gray eyes so like his Aunt Coralie.

"I'm in love with somebody but they're completely inappropriate and hate me."

"Oh Draco! Why would anybody hate you? You are brave and very kind. And! You never lose your temper with me even when I behave like a silly girl."

He smirked and touched her curled hair. Not for the first time in his life he wished he was attracted to women. If he was, someone like Leda would be just about perfect. Not that he was in any position emotionally or financially to have a serious relationship.

"You'd be surprised. I wasn't always…I wasn't a very nice person growing up."

Sadness flickered around her face and she nuzzled his shoulder, "That is okay. It's the past. We all regret."

He hadn't thought about it that way. He wondered if Harry regretted- No. he wasn't going to think about the H-person. He sighed and said he was cold, that they should go back inside.

"Okay, Draco, but I want to say something first. Love is love, and if you love this person you should tell them."

He nodded, smiled, and said he'd think about it. Privately he had no intention of saying a word. That would be like suicide.

They went inside to find their director arguing with the conductor, who was still unhappy with the key the opening song was played in. The director yelled,

"You brain has more bubbles in it than this champagne!" following this pronouncement he slammed down his glass with enough force to break the stem. The conductor shouted something along the lines of 'how dare you say that to me you _fucking _twat' and a brawl broke out. Draco left with Leda, stealing an unopened bottle of champagne on the way for the boys back at their apartment.

He made sure Leda got home safely to her family and then headed home on foot. It was too expensive to hire a taxi and all the buses were done running at this time of morning. It was frigid and the wind felt like the slashing of knives against his nose and cheeks. The alcohol buzzing through his veins made things bearable and he even hummed the theme song of their latest play as he walked home.

He was a block from home when a man in robes came skidding around the corner and knocked him down. Draco cursed as he felt the bottle of champagne shatter on the cobblestones and collared the man before he could escape.

"Now look here, you son of a bitch, you are going to compensate me for that!"

An Auror came around the same corner and knocked down both of them. The first man tried to escape in the confusion but Draco got him by the ears this time.

A yellowing streetlamp illuminated what he now recognized as prisoner's robes. He turned to the Auror and found himself face-to-face with Harry Potter himself.

If you told him he was dreaming, he would have believed you.

Numb from alcohol, shock, and adoration for the object of his affections, he handed over the criminal like he was of no account and softly said, "Here, I believe this belongs to you."

"…Thanks."

There was an awkward moment and then Draco held up the broken neck of his champagne bottle, "Is anyone going to pay for this?"

Potter escorted both him and the sullen criminal back to the Auror Department. Draco ended up in the Grievance Department explaining himself to an elderly woman with a name badge stating her name as 'Maud'. She was easily taken in with his pathetic story and seemed not to recognize him as the infamous Malfoy heir. He was compensated with twice the bottle's value, which he hadn't paid for in the first place, and left alone to find his own way home. As soon as he stepped outside he regretted that the passage of time had sobered him up and wondered if he should attempt to teleport. He decided against it when he tripped over nothing and had to grab hold of a building. It was not worth losing a body part.

Finally he made it home, richer and more confused than he'd been in months. He peeled off his clothes and fell into bed in a dead faint.

He was plagued with confused dreams about Harry all night and woke up aroused and exhausted several hours later.

~000~

He stumbled into work with seconds to spare and had to laugh when he saw how many other people were just as hung over and unenthusiastic about being there before noon. The day was eventful as usual. First he had to rescue their part-time acrobat from self-strangulation in the ropes yet again. Then there was some fuck up with the daily delivery of sandwiches for the backup dancers and someone got food poisoning. And of course the director and conductor still weren't speaking to each other which made rehearsals very difficult. The male lead had a wardrobe malfunction while changing costumes and tore a big hole in the crotch of his trousers. The seamstress was invoked, made responsible, grumbled at, and so on until she threw up her hands and said she quit.

Draco was shoved in her direction, as he no longer had an official job title, and spent three hours in a coffee shop listening to her woes until he convinced her to stay.

When he got back he was told cryptically by one of the lighting guys that there was someone waiting for him in one of the private balconies and that it was important. Confused and a little frightened, he moved slowly to the exclusive box. He hesitated outside the door before he gave a polite knock.

Instead of being given permission to come in, the door was opened from the inside. For the second time in 24 hours he was face-to-face with Harry Potter. His mouth watered against his will and he choked on his saliva. Harry seemed worried and patted him on the back until Draco stopped despite his proclamations that he was fine.

He took in his appearance. He wasn't wearing his robes, obviously. Instead he was dressed simply in a beige shirt, blue diamond-patterned sweater, and corduroys. He looked like any other employed 20-something on the street.

"Why are you here, Auror Potter?"

Harry hesitated and then seemed to make up his mind about something, "I wanted to thank you for stopping that man. On behalf of the Auror Depertment and myself specifically…thanks. He was not a very nice man and we're all safer now that he's locked up. I'm sure you recognized him, but still. Thank you."

"Ah. Right," Draco nodded, "I don't really follow the wanted announcements, seeing as I don't really live in your world anymore, but alright. Sure. Thanks for coming down personally."

"Yeah."

They stood there looking at everything but each other for a few more moments, each waiting for the other to say something. When nothing was forthcoming, Harry cleared his throat and said, "Well, I need to get back to the office now. I guess I'll see you around?"

It was a question not a statement. Draco blinked and wondered what that meant. He nodded. Harry gave him a quick smile before disappearing down the hall.

He was alone so he indulged and stared after him like a love-sick teenager. That is, he thought he was alone until Leda emerged like a ghost from another of the private boxes to stand beside him without his noticing. He noticed her when she said in Swedish, "So that is the one you love?"

Draco jumped and would've smacked her if she was anyone else. It was things like this that kept him from taking his wand to work.

"Jesus! How long have you been there?"

She shrugged, "I don't know," she held up her wrist and tapped the blank expanse, "no watch."

A sly look settled on her face, "He is very handsome. I see why you like him. He came here just to say thank you to your face? I think he likes you too, or else he would send someone else or a note."

Draco wanted so badly to believe her but he couldn't let himself. He shook his head, "No, you don't know him like a do. He's…very noble. It would be unspeakable to him to not come here in person."

"If you say so. But I think the way he looked at you was very interesting."

She sauntered off for rehearsal before he could ask her what the hell she meant by that.

That night he was buzzed again. He came to see what had happened this time and found the same demon spider from before harassing Leda. It was on her dressing gown this time. He glanced at Leda and saw her on the chair this time, half in costume. She waved her hands at him when she saw him looking, "What you waiting for? Kill it!"

He turned back to the spider. It mocked him yet again by not moving when he tried to scare it off the pink silk robe. He tried harder and it lunged for his hand. He snatched his fingers back before it could bite and asked Leda if she was attached to her robe.

"Yes! It was given to me as a good luck charm by my grandmother before she died!"

Fuck.

He turned back to the spider and saw that it had moved off of the robe and was heading up to the ceiling. He swatted at it but it disappeared between two ceiling tiles. Leda sighed and got down from her chair.

"You didn't kill the other one, did you? They are the same. Very evil."

He nodded at her choppy English. That spider was going down. He refused to let Leda and himself be terrorized by the cheeky monster.

~000~

They celebrated the end of their play with another dinner party. Leda dragged him along with her, asking that he make sure she got home safely and didn't do anything 'silly', like go home with their director or her partner on stage Johan. He was reluctant but a call home revealed that both his room mates would be out and he couldn't stand the thought of being there alone.

It was even more crowded this time and people ended up in the halls and on the roof. Draco tried to use the bathroom and found the tub full of drunken celebrants; he went outside.

He was just enjoying a private bottle of champagne on the front lawn when someone sat beside him. He assumed hazily that it was Leda as she was one of the only people there that really knew him. He hadn't really put down a lot of roots; their staff changed so frequently that the only people worth knowing were the likes of the musicians and the seamstress, who was practically a fixture of the building itself.

"Hey Malfoy. Draco. Um."

He looked over and decided he was hallucinating. Harry Potter was sitting next to him with a sheepish smile on that handsome face of his. He offered Draco a small plate of bite-size sweets and hors de oeuvres.

"You might want some solids with all that liquid."

Draco felt a cold sensation on his chest and realized he was pouring champagne on himself. He put the bottle to the side and wrung out his shirt. Thank god it was dark! His blush was dark enough to be seen as from more than the liquor. He mumbled his thanks and took a few of the treats.

"So, uh, you work for the theater now."

Draco nodded around a full mouth. Harry chewed his lip and asked,

"What do you do, exactly? Like, are you an actor or…what?"

He snorted, "No, I'm not an actor. I just do stuff. I used to be a stage hand, which meant I moved stuff around quietly during the plays and made sure nothing got broken, or fixed it if it did. But the female star of our last play, Leda Olafsson, spoke only a little English. I speak Swedish so I got promoted to her aide. I'm not really her aide, though. Well, I sort of am, but now I'm also kind of an odd-job guy. I _do _drop everything if Leda needs me, though." 

Harry listened to him with amusement flickering around his lips and the corners of his eyes. Finally Draco asked what was so funny.

"Nothing, nothing. You just…you're kind of funny when you talk. I guess I've never had a normal conversation with you, so I wasn't expecting you to sound like a normal person. I always thought you would speak really formally and use these cryptic concepts."

Draco shrugged and stole some more of Harry's food.

"I kind of can't afford to be a spoiled prick anymore. My life has turned to shit."

They were quiet and Draco looked at the sky. Things weren't as stiff between them now. It was like this wall had crumbled slowly without either of them noticing until they tried to find it again. The night sky was filled with white stars around a full moon. It must have been past midnight.

"It's not that bad for you, is it?"

Harry's voice was so quiet he thought he imagined it for a moment. Harry scooted closer and continued,

"You have a job, somewhere to live, and lots to eat, right?"

Draco sighed and smiled a little, "That's not all there is to life."

"I know."

Leda chose then to come prancing down the steps with her arms around one of the handsomer extras. Draco sighed and excused himself to rescue Leda. When he'd finally convinced her not to have sex with someone she barely knew and might have to see at work on Monday and went back to the tree Harry was gone.

~000~

The spider struck a third time. Draco was buzzed and appeared to find the damned thing on Leda's powder puff of all places. He looked at her for mercy and she shook her head, saying that it was a family heirloom. He was not allowed to spatter spider guts on it.

It would not be prodded in any direction. Five minutes went by with no change from it. Leda was forced to go next door and borrow some powder from the chorus girls, who commiserated with her when they heard about the spider that was terrorizing her make-up table. By the time she went onstage Draco was locked in a stare-down with the arachnid.

Someone knocked and Draco called, "Come in!"

"Draco? They told me I'd find you here…Oh…"

Draco broke the contest and turned to see Harry standing there looking embarrassed. Harry looked at the spider, and then he looked at Draco. He smiled and offered, "Want me to take care of that for you?"

Draco sagged and nodded, "If you can! You have to trust the thing its standing on like gold."

"Got it."

And without further ado Harry charged up and fearlessly seized the offending insect by its body. Somehow the thing didn't bite him and was crushed between those fingers over the garbage can. Harry threw the body in and then washed his hands in the little sink attached to the toilet.

Draco stared at him in speechless admiration.

Harry rubbed the back of his head and gave him a smile, "So anyway, I came here to invite you out with me and the guys for some drinks after the show-"

Draco kissed him. He wasn't thinking, and acted only on purse instinct. But somewhere during the first three seconds Harry's hands came to twist in his shirt and pull him closer. He decided that his instincts had some damn good ideas sometimes.

They had to separate eventually and Draco found his nose pressed to Harry's earlobe. "Harry?"

"Hm?"

"What…what are we doing?"

"Hugging. And very soon we're going to be kissing again. We may even miss drinks with the boys because kissing may take up some time. I have a lot of lost time to make up with you and I mean to start now," Harry's voice was confident but Draco detected to smallest hint of nerves hiding behind that bravery. This was as new to Harry as it was to Draco.

Draco's heart leapt at the words and he smiled against his neck, "Really?"

"Really."

Lips found one another again and again until Leda came in to change her costume and they had to separate and look innocent.

"He loves you," Leda said, pointing from Draco to Harry. Draco flushed scarlet and hissed a death threat in Swedish at her. Harry laughed and kissed the side of his head.

"I know."

They went out to drinks after all, but left extremely early. Harry was right. There were a lot of things to catch up on.

~000~

End Bottle Blonds and Spiders

Another concept piece. Another day of me procrastinating about Don't You. I can't help it! It's complicated! And I don't have the energy to write anything that requires concentration right now. I am a busy lady


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